


Dark Horse

by AutumnHarnett



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 14:05:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14166510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutumnHarnett/pseuds/AutumnHarnett
Summary: Reylo Western AU one-shot. Rey has been chasing Kylo Ren for months after he robbed her at gunpoint. One night changes everything.





	Dark Horse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [monsterleadmehome](https://archiveofourown.org/users/monsterleadmehome/gifts).



> This is a one-shot that was suggested by the winner of a giveaway on my Tumblr, monsterleadmehome. Enjoy!

“All I wanted to do is take care of my saloon!” Rey growled as she ducked behind the bar, clutching her revolver in her hand as she listened to the sound of gunfire breaking liquor bottles and glasses above her. “Let men drink, make some money! Playing sheriff is just costing me more money!”

“Yeah, but this is more interesting,” Poe Dameron grunted as he popped his head up from behind a nearby table to fire a few shots on the lone man who was firing upon them. “Plus, you haven’t been able to take care of customers in months!”

“I’d rather be cleaning up drunks!” Finn shouted before adding more fire to their fight.

“We’d be cleaning up drunks if that bastard hadn’t stolen from me!” she bit out as she peeked over the counter before firing two rounds at the bastard in question, Kylo Ren.

Six months ago, Rey would have never thought that she would be in this mess. As she stood in the First Bank of Nymene to make a deposit, she had been met face to face with the Ren gang. Their faces had been plastered all over the region, proclamations that they were wanted dead or alive. She had never paid much attention to them, figuring that they would never bother with such a small town as Nymene when there were bigger outposts in the region.

As their leader, a tall man wearing all black, an entire round in the air, she realized it had been a naïve thought. At her waist, she reached for her gun only to realize that she had left it back at the saloon. She had intended the deposit to be quick and uninterrupted.

“Everyone put your hands up where I can see them and no one gets hurt!” he shouted from behind a mask. As she traced her gaze over him, she quickly looked behind him as she noted that the two people with him were also well armed and masked. He slowly began to approach the teller’s counter in a fashion that Rey would later describe as unnecessarily dramatic. In the moment, she had seemed like a wolf closing in on its prey. “Now, this is a robbery. As long as everyone stays still and no one decides to play a hero, this should go pretty quickly.”

As he walked past Rey, he paused. His gaze rested briefly on her face before it went to the purse in her hands.

“I’ll take that—”

She clutched onto the bag.

“If you take this from me, my business will go under,” she hissed, her voice pleading. As he rose his revolver, she was face to face with the barrel. “These are my profits from the last week—”

“I don’t care about your business, but I have a feeling that you care about keeping your head on your shoulders,” he said in a muffled voice from behind his mask, his brown eyes molten as he put his hand on the trigger. “So, you can let go of the purse or I can pull this trigger.”

Rage clutched at her heart, squeezing it until it ached, chasing away the cold fear that had been there. Her fingers trembled as a few moments passed until she finally released the purse.

“Thank you, miss,” he said as he tipped his hat mockingly before tossing the purse into a bag before he continued to amble towards the teller’s counter. “I want all the money that you have in this bag.”

The next few moments seemed to pass slowly as she watched the panicked teller fumble with the bills, filling the man’s bag. She glanced back to the pair watching the door and then back to the man at the teller’s counter. It had been years since she had felt as helpless as she did in that moment.

When his bag was finally filled, the man moved in wide step to the door. For good measure, he fired into the air once more before exiting the bank, the duo who had been guarding the door rushing out behind him.

Rey had watched, the embers of rage within her stoked by the robbery. She had grown up as a nobody, a child taken from the streets of a city that she didn’t even remember the name of back east, tossed on a mercy train, and given to a ranch as a worker until she had saved up enough to leave and start a new life. That saloon was supposed to be her new life, but without that money she knew that she would close down within a matter of weeks.

She didn’t remember when she had started running, but as she burst through the doors of the bank, she had begun to sprint only to catch the small gang riding away.

“You’re going to pay!” she screamed as tears ran down her cheeks, slowing to a stop as realization struck. She wouldn’t catch him on that day, but she would catch him. “I’m going to make sure of it!”

And six months later, she was still playing lawman, trying to catch Ren and his gang. Only now, it seemed, that their cat and mouse chase had been turned on its head. Initially, she had looked into the ransom for the group and it had been more than enough to pay back what they had taken: 10,000 dollars. The poster had said “dead or alive” and she had intended to bring him in either way.

That had been until one winter night that had changed everything.

As bullets flew over her head, Rey tried to count each round. Quickly, she knew that was impossible plan with six people madly firing at one another.  

“Are you going to come out, Rey, or are you going to stay cowering behind that bar?” Kylo growled as the gunfire began to quiet. She heard the faint clicking of empty guns. They were at an impasse, it seemed, for the moment.  

“I’m not cowering, I’m trying not to be shot!” she snapped as she stood from behind the bar, wiping the shards of glass that had been showering her moments ago from her blouse and her hair. She looked at him from across the room. His pale face was unmasked, making her heart race in betrayal to her mind. It wasn’t the first time she had seen his face, his long nose and thick lips, but she still found herself staring despite herself.

“Let’s talk this out like civilized people—”

“Civilized people don’t come into a conversation with their guns blazing and they don’t steal from other people!” She felt that rage tremble within her once more. This time, it wasn’t because he had robbed her. It was something more. She had chased him across the plains and the desert, and through the mountains before she had returned to her saloon for the first time in nearly six months. The moment she gave up the chase, he had brought it back to her.

“Mr. Dameron is the one who started the shoot out,” he said smoothly. “

“I am done chasing you,” she breathed. “Someone else can do it, Ben, but that someone isn’t going to be me.” During her hunt, she had managed to dig up a little bit on his past including the fact that his real name wasn’t Kylo Ren. It was nearly as broken as her own, if not more so. He’d been a lonely boy who had fallen in the hands of another criminal, practically molding him into the man he had become.

Ben Solo, from the sound of it, had been a smart boy with a lonely life, waiting for the first bit of attention that was cast his way. When the head of an outlaw gang, Snoke, cast his sights on him, he hadn’t had a chance.

He flinched at the sound of that name, but he didn’t leave the bar. Instead, he started to cross the saloon with that same dramatic gait he had used in the bank. She rose her revolver.

“Turn around and get out of this town,” she snapped as she rose her revolver towards his chest. “Don’t make me put a bullet into you.”

“Do it,” he hissed, tilting his chin towards the her. “End me, Rey, and cash in that ransom. They’ll put my body on display in some circus tent like they did with Vader. They’ll let me rot while charging a quarter to every onlooker who wants to see the notorious Kylo Ren.”

The image of his lifeless body being ogled on by onlookers, pictures being taken as if his death was a spectacle to be celebrated made her finger freeze on the trigger. Six months ago, she would never have hesitated. She had one more bullet in the chamber. He was still, practically begging her to end his life.

“Do it, Rey,” he urged her. “Why aren’t you pulling that trigger?”

 “I… I can’t,” she breathed as she closed her eyes and lowered the gun. “Finn, Poe… Can… Can you wait outside? We need to talk. Alone.”

“Rey…” Finn pleaded as he shook his head. “We’re not going to leave you alone in here with him—”

“Please.”

The two men gave her unsure looks, but made their way slowly out of the bar. Finn gave her one last look before he walked through the door. After the soft bang of the door closing behind him, silence passed between Rey and Kylo for a few long moments before she turned to search for a bottle of liquor and a couple of glasses that were unbroken.

“You’re really giving up the chase?” he asked. “The ten thousand dollars that comes for my head? I thought you were going to bring me in and pay off all the debt you’ve built up here.”

“Yeah, well, plans change,” she replied as she found a bottle of whiskey and poured two glasses. She slid a glass to him. “I’ll figure something out. I’ve gotten myself out of worst binds.”

From the corner of her eye, she caught him grinning ever so slightly before he took a drink.

Memories of warm embers chasing away the chill of the brittle night air struck Rey, as she remembered two bodies entwined on furs on the cabin floor while a blizzard raged across the prairie, burying the fields in heavy frozen flakes that fell likes ashes. It was a night that Rey had tried to forget, but she never could ever fully push it from her mind.

As they had come to climax, she had seen his slight grin for the first time. It had left her breathless, the whole ordeal leaving her reeling with confusion. That confusion had sent her back to her saloon where Finn had managed to keep those she owed money to from coming in and sweeping up everything she owned.

“I guess you have,” he pointed out. “With my help.”

“That was one time.” It had been the event that had lead up to their night shared on the floor of that abandoned cabin. She had been chasing him for months, but as rumors of Ren’s whereabouts spread in the cold, mountainous region she had cornered him in, another posse had come searching for him and his bounty. Instead of splitting the bounty with her, they had turned their guns on her. A shootout had ensued with her and Kylo on the same side.

When he had been brazed by a bullet for her, she had taken him back to her cabin to take care of the wound. In the confines of that cabin after the heat of that shootout, she wondered what she would do once she brought him in. She had him where she wanted him, but the idea of ending the chase for good left her feeling empty and the idea of him being hung saddened her far more than she ever wanted to admit.  

Ever since that night, she had craved him. The feeling of his lips against her neck, his hands on her bare skin, and the sensation of them coming together. She had loved him and hated him all at once as they dove deeper and deeper into each other.

“Because you wouldn’t let it be more than one time,” he argued. “You left before we could even talk.”

“What is there to talk about?” she asked.

“You had me where you wanted me,” he murmured, leaning across the bar. “All you had to do was bring me into the marshal and you would have had that bounty. Instead, we spent the night in that cabin trying to get rid of all that tension between us, and I’m still pretty tense.”

“It was one night,” she insisted. “You have a bounty on your head. Nothing can ever really happen between us, Ben.”  

“One night that made you give up the chase. You can’t tell me that you don’t feel this between us. What do you have here?” he gestured at the decaying bar. “You can’t tell me that this is what you want… Being harassed by her debtors until you’re out on the street.”

“Do you have a better plan?” she laughed bitterly as she took a swig of her own drink. He hopped over the bar, standing so close to her that she could feel his warmth.

“We can start over,” he insisted as offered his hand to her. “I still have some of the cash I’ve stolen over the years. The gang has the rest, but I have enough to get us started somewhere else. Somewhere far from here. No debtors, no outlaws, no lawmen. Just you and me, Rey.”  

Rey stared at his hand for a long moment before setting her glass aside and taking his hand. He embraced her, crushing his lips against hers. Lifting her up onto the bar, she parted her legs beneath her skirt as he pressed himself against her. He grinded against her as they grew more desperate for another’s touch, eager to close any distance between them. She tangled her fingers into his hair as their tongues swirled before she broke the kiss.

“We can’t,” she breathed.

“Why not?” he gave her a dazed look.

“There’s shards of glass everywhere,” she laughed against his mouth as she kissed him once more.                                                               


End file.
